Tinted contact lenses have gained greater popularity as a result of the rise in the general acceptance of contact lenses, greater public sensitivity to personal appearance and improved contact lens structures (hard lenses vs. soft lenses vs. oxygen permeable lenses, etc.). Though the art illustrates a variety of manufacturing techniques for generating tinted or colored contact lenses little in the way of unique color patterns for tinted or colored lenses have been described in the art.
Colored contact lenses can be of two general catagories. The first being contact lenses which use essentially transparent enhancement colors and allow the color of the natural iris to show through but combine with that natural color to produce a new appearance. Such tinted lenses might typically be used to turn a hazel eye to an aqua colored eye. This class of colored lenses may not be able to change an underlying dark colored, brown iris to blue. The second category is the opaque class of tinted lenses in which the color masks the natural iris color and presents a new color on the outside of the eye. This class of lenses is able to render a brown eye blue.
Wichterle, U.S. Pat. No. 3,476,499, patented Nov. 4, 1969, describes that
"It has also been attempted selectively to color hydrogel contact lenses by surface printing. An imprint on the exposed outer surface of the lens is unacceptable for reasons of appearance and it is very difficult to produce an imprint on the inner or contact surface of the lens which does not unfavorably affect the smooth surface finish necessary for avoiding irritation of the cornea.
Consequently, the patentee employs rotational molding to cause a precipitated light absorbing material in the polymerizable mixture to be distributed to an annular zone about the vision region of the lens. The patentee would appear to be solely concerned with achieving an appearance that attempts to simulate a normal iris to the wearer.
According to Foley, U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,421, patented Feb. 24, 1981: "One prior art method is to paint or print a colored central portion onto a soft contact lens using an implement such as a brush." Another technique involves "a chemical printing process for coloring soft contact lenses." Foley cites "several problems with the printing type of technique." They are: "the color is only printed on the lens after it has been manufactured and, therefore, is not uniformly dispensed through the lens material itself." "Water soluble dyes have also been used to provide the tinting." Foley employs water soluble dyes to tint that are polymer bound to the backbone of the polymerized comonomer mixture used to make the lens. In this respect, reference is made to Su, U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,229, patented Aug. 28, 1984, for another disclosure on the use of polymer bound dyes. Su states, at col. 7, lines 50-58:
"When it is desired to apply the dye to one surface only, or to specific portion of the surface, the prepared lens may be placed on a fixture or in a mold, and the reactive dyestuff formulation applied only to a specific portion or portions of the lens surface."
Foley, at col. 10, lines 51-60, describes two molding methods for making a tinted lens, and at col. 11, lines 24-33, a third method, which are discussed as follows:
"By the first method, the tinted button is polymerized first, placed in a mold and a hydrogel co-monomer mixture is poured around the periphery of the tinted button and polymerized. The second method is to polymerize the clear button initially and form a centrally positioned aperture through this clear button. The co-monomer mixture including the dye is then poured within this aperture and polymerized."
"A third method for forming the clear and tinted button combination is to form either a tinted or clear button of the normal soft contact lens blank size, slice this button in half and polymerize a comonomer mixture of the opposite type, i.e., tinted or clear, onto the originally formed button thereby forming a `double layer` button with the lower portion of the button being tinted or clear and the upper portion being the opposite. In the cutting step the colored portion should be on the bottom so that the depth of cut used in forming the base curve will determine the diameter of the tinted area."
This patentee also demonstrates the desire to replicate the appearance of a normal iris.
Wichterle, U.S. Pat. No. 3,679,504, patented July 25, 1972, describes a number of techniques for making a colored molded contact lens. However, the patent fails to indicate a preference for a design on the lens other than artistically simulating the iris. Wichterle, Canadian Pat. No. 815,956, issued June 24, 1969, also describes techniques for making colored molded lens without characterizing a preference of design to be applied to the lens.
LeGrand, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,718, patented Jan. 23, 1973, describes a procedure of making a colored lens by cutting into an already shaped lens and filling the cut with the coloring material. The basic pattern described by the patent are striations.
Neefe, U.S. Pat. No. 4,472,327, patented Sept. 18, 1984, describes embedding light reflecting particles, such as mica or finely ground oyster shells, in the lens during molding.
Knapp, U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,402, patented Apr. 15, 1986, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,704,017, patented Nov. 3, 1987, describe the deposition of a single layer of colored dots on the surface of a contact lens in the iris area. The patents place dots about the iris section of the lens in the same manner, and for the same purpose, as the printer who makes a printing plate etched with dots or a laser printer that prints dots on a surface. If the plate has more dots per inch or the laser printer prints more dots per inch, the more continuous appearing the printed matter appears. Eventually the eye is incapable of discerning the empty space between the dots. This comes about in two ways. The eye is too far removed from the printed matter to distinguish between the dots or the dots are too close and too small for the eye, without magnification, to distinguish between the dots. Thus the patents draw upon an old art and artist trick ("pointillism".sup.1) to simulate a continuous pattern on a surface. The patents use conventional printing with a soft pad which picks up the pattern from an etched plate and deposits the dot pattern onto the surface of the lens. FNT 1. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster Inc., Springfield, Massachusetts U.S.A., defines "pointillism" as "the practice or technique of applying dots or tiny strokes of color elements to a surface so that when seen from a distance the dots or strokes blend luminously together"
Little mention appears in the art about the use of colored patterns in contact lenses which do other than attempt to effect a simulation of the pattern of the conventional iris, either by way of a plain repetitive pattern (the Knapp patents are an illustration) or an irregular pattern that trades on the underlying iris to provide texture and realism to the appearance effected through use of the lenses (the LeGrand patent is an illustration).
There is no art prior to this invention which addresses the use of patterns in the iris region of a contact lens that provides variability of design considerations unlike that of the natural iris yet can be used to effect the appearance of a natural eye. Such is one of the many objectives of the invention. There is no art prior to this invention that provides for contact lenses which, when worn, lend to the eye the appearance of a pattern distinctively different from the iris of a natural eye. Indeed, it has been the raison detre of the prior art to simulate the natural eye effect. However, unique iris cosmetics is another of the many objectives of this invention.
There is no art prior to this invention which utilizes a design for the iris section of a contact lens that relies on creating a visual illusion of a natural or unnatural iris design by the interaction of two separate and distinctive designs. The use of visual illusions is at the heart of this invention.
There is no art prior to this invention which utilizes a moire pattern in a contact lens to provide a cosmetic effect. There is no art prior to this invention which utilizes lenslets in the iris region to effect a cosmetic effect. Both of these, i.e., moire patterns and lenslets represent unique attributes of this invention in contact lenses.
There is no art prior to this invention which provides a contact lens with a posterior surface with a quasi-regular pattern, a body of physical thickness, and an anterior surface with a similar or different pattern, these patterns comprising solid and open arrangements with a slight angle relative to each other. Such constitutes another of the objectives of the invention.
The subject of moire patterns has been addressed by Oster, et al., Scientific American, pages 1-11 (May 1963). In defining the requisites of a moire effect, they state that "the only requirement for a moire pattern is that the interacting figures have some sort of solid and open regions. The solid regions can be lines (straight, curved or wiggly), dots or any other geometric form." As a rule, moire patterns are produced whenever two periodic structures are overlapped. Oster, et al. point out that a "moire pattern can be regarded as the mathematical solution to the interference of two periodic functions". . .
It is offered that the moire pattern or effect is best defined as at least two superimposed figures, at least one having some sort of transparent or semi-transparent or open regions through which one or more of the other figures may be at least partially viewed spatially separated or not, which interact so as to effect a different visual appearance, constituting the pattern, representing a visual illusion of both figures even though they have not physically changed. The figures may be of the same general shape, or vastly different; and they may have the same color or have different colors. The more varied the designs of the figures and/or the more varied the colors, the more complex will be the appearance or design of the moire pattern, though one could imagine that a highly complex pattern and/or color combination could result in sufficient cancellation of effects that the appearance of the moire pattern could end up looking quite simple. In the definition set forth in this paragraph, the term "illusion" deserves comment. In the context of moire patterns, the illusion is a reflection of what the mind's eye perceives from the interaction of the figures. The resulting pattern caused by such interaction appears to a viewer as having a design, shape, color, repetitiveness and/or complexity which is/are unlike the individual figures which make up the pattern. In addition, a moire pattern does not depend per se upon the incapacity of the eye to locate space between dots. It would, in the case of dots as the figures for generating the moire pattern, trade upon the interaction of two separate layers of dots in space to generate the pattern and the eye would depend upon the space about the dots to generate the interaction necessary for the illusion of a moire pattern.
Rowland, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,357,772 and 3,357,773, patented Dec. 12, 1967, describes the use of lenslets in plastic materials for the purpose of generating unique visual moire patterns. Rowland demonstrates that a moire pattern can be generated from a combination of open figures and lenslets. The reflective effect of the lenslet combines with the open figures to generate the moire pattern.